Suggested Reading

They Can’t Eat You

Marc Sparks

Do you want to learn how a high school graduate with a C+ average became a serial entrepreneur who has started, run, and sold many successful companies? If you think success only comes after following the standard high school/college/start-in-the-mailroom path, Marc Sparks is here to prove that notion wrong. Marc’s inspiring rise to success can be emulated, but with great power comes great responsibility. When everything was abruptly pulled out from under him, Marc started over with nothing, once again fighting his way to the top . . . and staying there! Marc shares his story and then offers “Fifty Sparks” that you can use to help create your own path to success. Unorthodox and sometimes surprising (you don’t need college to be successful), Marc’s “Fifty Sparks” lay a foundation on which anyone can build his or her next venture.

The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster

Darren Hardy

The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster will prepare you for the wild ride of entrepreneurship. It will warn you (of forthcoming fears, doubts, and the self-defeating conditioning of your upbringing and past), inoculate you (from the naysayers, dream-stealers, and pains of rejection and failure), and guide you (as you build those under-developed skills of independence, self-motivation, and self-accountability) safely past the landmines that blow up and cause the failure of 66 percent of all new businesses.

You will learn the best strategies Darren has ever collected from the most successful people on the planet, covering the four essential skills necessary for entrepreneurial success: Sales, Recruiting, Leadership, and Productivity.

Who Moved My Cheese?

Spencer Johnson

Dr. Spencer Johnson realizes the need for finding the language and tools to deal with change—an issue that makes all of us nervous and uncomfortable. Most people are fearful of change because they don’t believe they have any control over how or when it happens to them. Because change happens either to the individual or by the individual, Spencer Johnson shows us that what matters most is the attitude we have about change. When the Y2K panic gripped the corporate realm before the new millennium, most work environments finally recognized the urgent need to get their computers and other business systems up to speed and able to deal with unprecedented change. And businesses realized that this was not enough: they needed to help people get ready, too.

The Compound Effect

Darren Hardy

No gimmicks. No hyperbole. No magic bullet. The Compound Effect is based on the principle that decisions shape your destiny. Little, everyday decisions will either take you to the life you desire or to disaster by default. Darren Hardy, publisher of SUCCESS magazine, presents The Compound Effect, a distillation of the fundamental principles that have guided the most phenomenal achievements in business, relationships, and beyond. This easy-to-use, step-by-step operating system allows you to multiply your success, chart your progress, and achieve any desire. If you’re serious about living an extraordinary life, use the power of The Compound Effect to create the success you want.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

Former ABC journalist Gayle Tzemach Lemmon tells the riveting true story of Kamila Sidiqi and other women of Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban’s fearful rise to power. In what Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea, calls “one of the most inspiring books I have ever read,” Lemmon recounts with novelistic vividness the true story of a fearless young woman who not only reinvented herself as an entrepreneur to save her family but, in the face of ferocious opposition, brought hope to the lives of dozens of women in war-torn Kabul.

How to Meet and Talk to Anyone…Anywhere…Anytime

Marvin Brown

Most people fear meeting and talking to strangers. The problem is they don’t know how! In this insightful and entertaining book, Marvin Brown provides simple, elegant, and easy-to-use tools that people can use immediately to meet and talk to anyone, anywhere. The lessons in this book can change lives.

Rework

by Jason Fried

Rework shows you a better, faster, easier way to succeed in business. Read it, and you’ll know why plans are actually harmful, why you don’t need outside investors, and why you’re better off ignoring the competition. The truth is, you need less than you think. You don’t need to be a workaholic. You don’t need to staff up. You don’t need to waste time on paperwork or meetings. You don’t even need an office. Those are all just excuses. What you really need to do is stop talking and start working. This book shows you the way. You’ll learn how to be more productive and how to get exposure without breaking the bank, plus tons more counterintuitive ideas that will inspire and provoke you.

KFC in China: Secret Recipe for Success

by Warren K. Liu

This book examines the major contributing factors that catapulted KFC to the top of the Chinese restaurant service industry in less than two decades. It focuses on KFC China’s competitive differentiators, and how they jelled in support of a coherent business strategy and of each other. The successful execution of KFC China’s business strategy has since been rewarded with an unlikely industry leadership position in growth, profitability, market share, and brand recognition in the world’s fastest growing economy.

CRUSH IT: Why Now Is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion

by Gary Vaynerchuk

By the end of this book, any reader will have learned how to harness the power of the Internet to make their entrepreneurial dreams come true. Step by step, CRUSH IT! is the ultimate driver?s manual for modern business. The author has captured attention with his pioneering, multi-faceted approach to personal branding and business. His lessons on social media, passion, transparency, and reactionary business are not to be missed!

Think and Grow Rich

by Napoleon Hill

Think and Grow Rich is a motivational personal development and self-help book written by Napoleon Hill and inspired by a suggestion from Scottish-American businessman Andrew Carnegie. While the title implies that this book deals only with how to achieve monetary wealth, the author explains that the philosophy taught in the book can be used to help individuals succeed in all lines of work and to do or be almost anything they want in this world. The book was first published in 1937 during the Great Depression. At the time of Hill’s death in 1970, Think and Grow Rich had sold 20 million copies. It remains the biggest seller of Napoleon Hill’s books.